Les Strategies D'Adaptation des Personnes Agees aux Prises avec des Sentiments Depressifs

[Home, the elderly person's identity card]

Ageing at home is a cultural reality. Home carries an emotional weight, and even more so as we age. Furthermore, our home may be a protective envelope, a narcissistic image of ourselves and a territory to share. However, the perspective of new types of "home", better adapted to the elderly, is taking shape, as is the moving of boundaries between the institution and home.

L'aptitude à résoudre les problèmes interpersonnels chez les personnes âgées en fonction du niveau des sentiments dépressifs

Afin de dégager les aspects écologiques de la dépression chez les personnes âgées déprimées et non-déprimées, on a comparé l'aptitude à résourdre les problèmes interpersonnels sur des personnes âgées déprimées et des personnes âgées non-déprimées. Les évaluations effectuées sur quarante sujets n'ont révélé aucune différence d'aptitude au niveau des épreuves de la pensée optionnelle et de l'épreuve de la perception des conséquences entre les sujets déprimés et non-déprimés. Toutefois, les résultats démontrent certains liens entre les capacités de solution de problèmes interpersonnels et les variables démographiques. La présente étude constitue une contribution partielle à l'éclairage des problèmes spécifiques chez les sujets âgés déprimés.

Perceived control and coping in women faced with activity restriction due to osteoarthritis: relations to anxious and depressive symptoms

The study focuses on perceived control and coping strategies regarding activity restriction due to osteoarthritis in a sample of older women. Using a cross-sectional design, it examines how these variables, separately and in combination, predict anxious symptoms and depressive symptoms. Perceived control did not predict anxious symptoms, while approach-type coping strategies did. Perceived control and approach-type coping strategies individually predicted depressive symptoms. Higher perceived control in interaction with avoidant-type coping strategies significantly predicted lower depressive symptoms. Overall, the findings suggest that perceived control and coping strategies with regard to activity restriction relate in different ways to anxious symptoms and to depressive symptoms.

Psychothérapie cognitive et dépression dans l'âge: un modèle d'intervention en psychiatrie gériatrique

Psychological treatment of depression in the elderly has recently benefited from the development of the cognitive approach. In particular, cognitive psychotherapy seems well adapted to and accepted by older people. In this article, we attempt to show the course of this type of psychotherapy in the case of a 79 year-old depressive woman in our Cognitive Therapy Unit for Elderly. We emphasize the therapeutical setting and the content of the sessions, the techniques used, the changes that occurred, and finally, the therapeutic alliance is described. Although some negative views about psychotherapy with older people are not totally abandoned, this vignette is a good illustration of the benefits for the patient and the highly enriching work for the therapist.